Previews

Need for Speed Carbon

The latest in EA's street racer series looks to take the action to a deadlier level.

Spiffy:

Canyon challenges are cool; autosculpt customization is slick; crew members add a new dynamic.

Iffy:

Frame-rate issues; the PS3 version still looked rather early; will the series remain fresh and interesting?

EA's venerable Need for Speed franchise has been around for quite a number of years now. Morphing most recently into a method of delivering some fairly stylish underground street racing, the last effort -- Need for Speed Most Wanted -- reintroduced the cop-chasing element with style. This time around, we're looking at the new Need for Speed Carbon, which is hitting a plethora of platforms in the fall, including the PS3 and 360. At the recent EA games event in Redwood Shores, I got to sit down and check out the 360 version first-hand, and was also privy to a brief glimpse of the work-in-progress PS3 version.

The core of the game revolves around you starting out at the bottom of the underground street racing pile. You'll need to cruise around a large city -- which is split up into multiple districts and a couple of new canyon courses -- and earn a name for yourself on the street. Along the way, you'll be able to form up your own "crew" of racers, which adds one of the new dynamics to the gameplay. There are initially three different types of crew members: mechanics, fabricators and fixers. As their names suggest, these guys can help out with upgrading your rides, tricking them out for appearance's sake and also getting you out of trouble with the local law enforcement agencies.

But the big hook in Need for Speed Carbon is the inclusion of the canyon duels. The area of the city known as Carbon Canyon is where the action is played out once your reputation is on the line. Getting out of the way of the cops, this perilous route is used by the denizens of the street racing lifestyle to settle beefs and win territory. One caveat though -- you might just lose everything you own if you take a nosedive over the side of one of the many hairpin turns. The stakes have never been this high before.

So as you attempt to take over more and more of the city blocks by participation in races, you'll be able to earn prize money and gain access to bigger and better rides. There are three distinct classes of cars to pick from. You've got your tuners, your muscle cars, and of course those delectable exotics too. EA has really pushed hard this time to make the in-game customization of the vehicles as varied as possible. Using a method coined as "autosculpting," players will have an unprecedented level of control over pretty much every aspect of the visual style of their rides.

The further you get into the game, the more levels of customization open up. It's pretty impressive to see this feature in action, and only when you see a demo of the game do you begin to realize the scope that autosculpting will provide. The other classic play mechanics are back in full effect including drafting, nitrous boosts, the speed breaker system and a few others too. The crew members can also be used in the actual races to help either hinder the CPU racers or assist you in getting to the front of the pack. They are called in to aid by the click of a joypad button, and it'll be interesting to see how these guys alter some of the more advanced tactical approaches from the previous games.